Instructing the Novice: A Kindred Tales PLUS Novel: Brides of the Kindred Read online

  “I wondered about that,” Lizabeth admitted. “Um, could you toss me that robe now, Lone? Poor Anya probably has other people she’s supposed to bring breakfast to.”

  “Come and let me put it on you,” he insisted, his gray eyes half-lidded. “I need to check your breasts and make certain you’re not needing right now, anyway.”

  “I’ll tell you when—if—I have another needing attack,” she promised reluctantly. “Now toss me the robe.”

  “Come and let me put it on you. Let me see you, Lizabeth.” His voice dropped to a soft growl. “I won’t be able to ask such things after we get back to the Mother Ship—I’ll never get to see your beauty again. Let me drink my fill of it now.”

  The soft pleading in his voice and the hunger in his piercing gray eyes seemed to break something inside her. And the fact that he had already seen her and thought her body was beautiful bolstered her courage.

  “All right,” she said at last, slipping out of bed. “If that’s really what you want.”

  “You’re what I want,” Lone murmured.

  His eyes scanned lazily over her nude body, making Lizabeth blush but she raised her chin and tried to overcome the urge to cover herself with her hands. When she reached Lone, she deliberately put her back to him and slid her arms into the silky sleeves of the deep red dressing gown he held open for her.

  “There now, that wasn’t so bad. Was it?” Lone murmured in her ear as he reached around her to close the gown and tie the crimson sash in a loose knot at her waist. “Thank you for letting me see you, Mistress.”

  “If you really were my Novice, I’d have you punished for being so demanding,” Lizabeth said, rather breathlessly. “I’m pretty sure what you’ve been doing is called ‘topping from the bottom’ and I shouldn’t allow it.”

  “Topping from the bottom, hmm?” Lone hummed thoughtfully in her ear. “I like that. Where did you learn such a term?”

  “A case I had before I worked for the Kindred High Council. I represented a dominatrix who was being sued by one of her clients. I had to, er, learn quite a lot about her world in order to prepare for the case.”

  “And did you win?” Lone asked, finally turning her to face him.

  “Hell yes, I won.” Lizabeth arched an eyebrow at him. “I don’t play to lose—you should know that by now, Lone.”

  “I most certainly do. It’s one of the things I admire about you, Mistress.” He smiled. “Would you like to have a seat at the table and I’ll let Anya in with the First Meal things?” He indicated the small, ornately carved table beside the window again.

  “Thank you—I will.” Lizabeth sat and Lone opened the door again, inviting the Friezen woman inside this time.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said, nodding at him as she pushed the floating cart over to Lizabeth. “If you please, madam, be careful—these dishes are hot,” she said as she started unloading the contents of the cart.

  “There’s nothing alive or grown in dung, is there?” Lizabeth asked apprehensively as two large shiny, gold, domed dishes were placed on the table—one for her and one for Lone, apparently.

  “Oh, you mean like the Pyrnig fungus?” Anya asked. “No, madam—nothing like that. I heard you had some last night and I know how rich it can be—though the likes of me has only tasted it once or twice. So I brought you quantham eggs and yorn cakes with sour-berry jelly. I hope that’ll be to your liking.”

  Seeing as how she hadn’t actually had any dinner at all the night before, Lizabeth was pretty sure anything that wasn’t completely disgusting would be to her liking.

  “I’m sure it will be fine, thank you Anya,” she said smiling. “But you don’t have to call me madam—I’m just Lizabeth.”

  “Oh no—I couldn’t do that!” Anya’s eyes got wide. “I was told that as an undermaid, I must address all the Mistresses with respect—so I must!”

  “Very well then,” Lizabeth said, seeing she couldn’t dissuade her. “How are you settling in here?”

  “It’s hard work,” Anya said frankly. “But I don’t mind it a bit. I’d much rather be here working hard than relaxing back in the ripening tent, waiting for the shaman to decide I’m ready for cutting.”

  “Do they really…cut women between their legs?” Lizabeth still could hardly believe it.

  “Oh, yes madam!” Anya said earnestly. “They have to.”

  “Have to?” Lizabeth shook her head. “What do you mean? Why would they have to do something so barbaric and evil?”

  “Well, because of the prophesy of course,” Anya said matter-of-factly. Closing her eyes, she recited in a slow, steady voice:

  “The Snow Queen must be fair of face

  Filled with Beauty, Age, and Grace.

  When she is cut and her Blood flows,

  The Gods will save us from the Snows.

  And if the males do Breed her Well

  Gods save us from the Frozen Hell.

  In her belly Plant a Seed

  The Gods will Give us All we Need.”

  “And…the Friezens—your people—really believe all that?” Lizabeth asked. “Do you believe it?”

  “Yes, madam.” Anya hung her head, looking sad and ashamed. “What Brut said about me being selfish was true. I know I should have stayed and let them make me the Snow Queen for the good of the people.” She looked at Lizabeth appealingly. “But I just couldn’t stand to be cut! I tried to make up my mind to it but the more I thought of it, the more frightened I got until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to run!”

  “You did the right thing,” Lizabeth assured her. “And I promise you this— your not being, uh, sacrificed…” She winced at the word. “Won’t make any difference one way or another to your people. You can’t control the weather or the crop yield by hurting someone—that’s not how things work.”

  Anya looked at her, wide-eyed. “Do you not believe in the Gods, then, where you come from, madam?”

  Lizabeth wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. She herself wasn’t a big believer in any kind of deity, although she knew most of the Kindred aboard the Mother Ship were devout.

  “We Kindred believe in the Goddess—the Mother of All Life,” Lone said, coming to sit across the table from Lizabeth. “We revere all things female.” His face grew dark. “No just or loving deity would order that a female be mutilated and raped just to appease them.”

  “A female god?” Anya shook her head, as though she found the concept difficult to grasp. “I know that places like this…” She motioned at the Tower around them… “Where women are the rulers do exist but I never thought of a female god.”

  “The Goddess is just and loving, though we cannot always understand her motives or the reasons behind things that happen to us.” Lone spoke quietly. “I believe she brought us to you just at the right moment to save you, Anya. She would abhor the practice of female defilement and mutilation.”

  “Mayhap you’re right.” Anya bobbed her head thoughtfully. “Though my brother still says I should go back.”

  “Your brother?” Lizabeth frowned. “Who’s that?”

  “Why, it’s Karx, madam,” Anya said. “He who is the Mistress Superior’s Novice. He says like Brut did that I’m being selfish and I ought to go back and be the Snow Queen after all. But Mistress Verlandah, she won’t let him make me,” she added quickly. “I heard her tell him that they needed your credit too bad and as long as you wouldn’t hear of me being sent back, I couldn’t be sent.” She looked at Lizabeth fearfully. “You won’t let me be sent back, will you, madam? That’s why I begged to bring your breakfast tray today—I wanted to ask you myself in case Karx talked to you later on.”

  “Of course not! You’re staying right here,” Lizabeth said firmly. She was shocked, both at the fact that Karx was Anya’s brother and that he would advocate sending his own sister back to torture, rape, and possible death. What a bastard!

  “Oh, thank you, madam!” Anya exclaimed gratefully. “Thank you a hundred, thousand times!